I haven’t gotten to the point where I feel like I’m going over the hill and going back down. “I feel there’s still an upward progression within myself. “I feel like I’m on another level in every way these days,” he said. Rudd, who turned 40 this past week, sees the new record as a creative breakthrough. So I think it’s more personal, more reflective.” … The United Nations project, I wrote a bunch of tracks for that project and it was everybody bringing their individuality to the table, whereas this has been constructed by me. “I was writing these songs back then and some even before then. “It feels like a follow-up to ‘Spirit Bird’ in a way,” Rudd said. It’s been six years since Rudd’s last proper solo record, “Spirit Bird.” The new one showcases an honest, earnest and personal side of Rudd, in songs filled with images of the natural world and soaring melodies on tracks like the lovely lead single “Walk Away.” Many of these new “Storm Boy” songs began gestating in his pre-United Nations period. “I’m bringing my whole solo percussion rig - something I haven’t brought out for a while,” Rudd said.Īnd, as fans have come to expect, Rudd is busting out some new sounds and some rare instruments like an Indian slide guitar and some hand-built, one-of-a-kind contraptions that he has invented. On the current tour, he’s playing with a four-piece band and returning to his roots as a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He put out an ambitious album, “Nanna,” with the group. He put together an eight-piece global collective of world musicians called the United Nations that placed Rudd at the center of a veritable reggae-tinged orchestra. In 2015, Rudd took a creative turn and started packing stages with global collaborators.
Playing them all and singing, his sets quickly became must-see concerts and won him a loyal worldwide fan base, including a Colorado contingent that packed his shows in recent years at Belly Up, Jazz Aspen’s Labor Day Festival and the Mammoth Festival. Rudd burst on the international scene following his 2002 debut, “To Let,” playing mostly as a one-man band and storming the stage with a complex instrumental setup worthy of Rube Goldberg: combining as many as three didgeridoos, with a slide guitar on his lap and more string instruments at his side, a stompbox at his feet - drums, dobros, banjos, harmonicas and more within reach.